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Roosevelt Night 

Middlesex Club 

Boston 

October 27 
1920 



ADDRESSES 



Hon. CHARLES G. WASHBURN 

Mrs. CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON 

Hon. henry CABOT LODGE 

Rev. M. ASHBY JONES 



PRINTED BY THE CLUB 
1920 






OFFICERS 

OF THE 

MIDDLESEX CLUB 



LOUIS A. COOLIDGE 

vice-presidents 

Henry Cabot Lodge John W. Weeks 

John L. Bates 



asst. secretary 
Benjamin F. Felt 



Charles H. Ramsay 

executive committee 
Charles S. Proctor, Chairman 
A. S. Apsey 

Caspar G. Bacon 
James E. Baker 

Herbert E. Fletcher 
Charles T. Cottrell 
Joseph W. Gerry 

Sidney M. Hedges 

Charles H. Innes 

Charles E. Fay 

Walter R. Meins 
Lincoln R. Welch 

John Jacob Rogers 
Paul S. Burns 

Seward W. Jones 

Edgar R. Champlin 

George H. Doty 

Frank W. Stearns 

Edward E. Jameson 

Joseph B. Jamieson 

advisory board 
Samuel L. Powers Charles G. Bancroft 






ADDRESSES 



CHARLES G. WASHBURN. MRS. CORINNE ROOSEVELT 

ROBINSON, HENRY CABOT LODGE AND 

REV. M. ASHBY JONES 

BEFORE THE MIDDLESEX CLUB. "ROOSEVELT NIGHT", 
AT HOTEL SOMERSET. BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 

WEDNESDAY EVENING. OCTOBER 27. 1920 
Louis A. COOLIDGE, TresiJing 



The CHAIRMAN. As president of the Middlesex Ckib I am 
very proud to-night. I am proud to preside over this, the largest 
dinner which the Club has ever held; I am proud that in our 
number we see for the first time our newest voters [applause], 
the women Republicans of Massachusetts, who have shown us 
the great consideration of not objecting when cigars were lighted. 
I am proud that the Middlesex Club, the first Club to recognize 
the anniversary of the birth of Theodore Roosevelt [applause], 
continues in the path it has marked out for itself by holding on 
this, the second anniversary following his death, the second dinner 
which bears his name. It is fitting that we Americans, quickened 
by his spirit, thrilling with the genius of his patriotism, should 
gather every year to drink anew at the pure waters of the fountain 
which gushed out when he smote the rock. I am proud that we 
have here his sister [applause], Mrs. Robinson; that we have here 
his closest friend and associate in political life, Henry Cabot 
Lodge [applause and cheers] ; that we have here an eloquent 
clergyman from the State of Georgia from which his ancestors 
hailed. Rev. M. Ashby Jones [applause], an old friend of this 
Club, and that we have his intimate classmate, biographer and 
friend, Charles G. Washburn. [Applause.] I welcome you to meet 
them, to hear them and with them pay tribute to this noble, fear- 
less leader of his countrymen. 

3 



[At this point a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt was unveiled, 
all the members rising and applauding. This was followed by the 
singing of one verse of America.] 

The CHAIRMAN. As the first speaker of the evening I pre- 
sent the Hon. Charles G. Washburn of Worcester, Theodore 
Roosevelt's classmate and friend. [Applause, all rising.] 

HON. CHARLES G. WASHBURN 
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Middlesex Club, Ladies and Gen- 
tlemen: 

We are met together this evening to do honor to the memory 
of a very great American who, in the minds of his countrymen, 
is associated with two of his predecessors in the presidential office 
— Washington and Lincoln. His life is known-^more intimately to 
us than theirs can ever be. For more than forty years as fierce 
a light has beat upon every detail of it as ever beat upon a throne. 
I knew him at Harvard when he was a boy of eighteen, just after 
he had won his first great victory and by the sheer force of his will 
had made a strong man out of a frail child. He stood in a class 
by himself even then and was regarded by a few of his closest 
friends as a man of destiny. 

His pathway to the presidency was unlike that which had ever 
before been trodden. A service in the legislature which he thought 
was to be only for one year extended to three. Then he broke off 
all connection with politics and devoted himself largely to litera- 
ture and to his ranch. Then he had a place upon the National 
Civil Service Commission and upon the Police Commission of 
the City of New York, neither one of which carried with it the 
slightest hope of political preferment. Then Assistant Secretary 
of the Navy, from which post he resigned to become a soldier. 
Then Governor of New York ; then against his express will, Vice- 
President of the United States ; and finally made President by the 
hand of an assassin. Certainly up to this time there is lacking 
every element that usually makes for political advancement. 

He became a national figure at the age of twenty-six when he 
went to the Chicago Convention as one of the delegates at large 
from the State of New York. He made the Civil Service Com- 
mission respected and the Police Commission of New York City 
feared. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy he made adequate 
4 



preparation for the war with Spain, and then resigned that office, 
against the advice of his best friends, to lead his regiment upon 
the field of battle. When he returned, he was drafted as the 
Republican candidate for Governor of New York and was elected. 
He filled that great office with distinction. He left it unwillingly 
to become the Vice-President of the United States and then be- 
came President. In that great office he quickened the conscience 
of the American people. He built the Panama Canal and held the 
scales of justice even between capital and labor. He compelled 
a reluctant Congress to pass beneficent legislation, curbing the 
greed of the powerful and in the interest of the weak and helpless, 
and when he finished his term of office the American people would 
willingly have conferred upon him the unprecedented honor of 
another election. It was not a question of his being nominated 
by the Republican party ; it was merely of his willingness to accept 
the nomination. His closest personal and political friend, Henry 
Cabot Lodge, happily here present at this table this evening, was 
chairman of that convention of 1908 to effect two purposes, to 
make the nomination of Roosevelt impossible and to make the 
nomination of Taft certain. 

After that interesting trip to Africa and to Europe, he returned 
to this country in June, 1910, and was then, unless we except the 
day when his death was made known to the world, at the very 
zenith of his fame. He might, in 1910, have retired from all 
public activities, content with the great services he had rendered 
and satisfied to live out his life as the best beloved and most 
highly respected citizen of the United States, but he preferred 
to hold himself in readiness for any ser\-ice he might be able to 
render to his countrymen and if need be to engage in political 
strife. As time went on and 1912 approached, here and there in 
constantly increasing volume came a demand for him to be again 
a candidate for the presidency. At first he lent a deaf ear to the 
call. Later on, and with great reluctance, he felt compelled to 
listen to it, and finally when he became convinced that the great 
policies that he cared for most were likely to be abandoned, he 
consented to allow his name to go before the Republican conven- 
tion and then to be the candidate of the Progressive Party. Who 
of us will ever forget those awful days? Many of his former 
friends left him, some in anguish of spirit and others with resent- 
ment, but it made no difference to him ; his mind was made up, 



and like a crusader of old he led the Progressive Party, which, 
though defeated, polled over four million votes. When it is re- 
membered that the Progressive campaign was conducted without 
any organization, against the combined political ability of both 
of the old parties, against ninety per cent, of the press of the 
country, and practically by Roosevelt alone, I think it must be 
regarded as the greatest personal triumph ever achieved by a 
political leader in the history of constitutional governments. 

This, of course, is not the time or place to make an argument, 
and yet I cannot leave this great political struggle, his part in 
which has provoked more hostile criticism than any act in his 
career, without recording my conviction that it was his devotion 
to the cause that drove him on, and not any political ambition. 
This, I believe, is capable of easy demonstration. You will re- 
member that when the six governors sent their letter to him on 
the tenth of February, 1912, and after he had made up his mind 
to be a candidate, but before he had sent his letter of acceptance, 
which was dated February 24, he made that speech before the 
Ohio legislature on "A Charter of Democracy," in which, among 
other things, he advocated the recall of judicial decisions. This 
alienated hundreds of thousands of Republican votes. He did 
not need to make it to secure the votes of radicals — those were 
his already. He must have known, as well as any one, what the 
result would be. And then, when he had left nothing undone and 
had done everything to make his nomination in a Republican con- 
vention impossible, he agreed to be a candidate. 

In advocating the recall of judicial decisions, how many, many 
friends of Roosevelt said of him, "He has gone off on a tangent." 
The tangent was a straight line. Since 1885 Roosevelt had been 
considering what he regarded as a great wrong, and what was a 
wrong, the tendency of the courts to ignore the expressed wishes 
of the legislatures touching the exercise of the police power. When 
he was in the legislature, a bill in the interest of public health, 
which he favored, was passed. It prohibited the manufacture 
and preparation of tobacco in any form in tenement houses, in 
certain cases. Later it was declared unconstitutional by the Cir- 
cuit Court of Appeals of New York on the ground, among others, 
that it was not a proper exercise of the "police power". The judge 
rendering the decision deplored the fact that the bill would force 
the cigar maker from his home and its hallowed associations. 
6 



Imagine the kind of home the sanctity of which that bill invaded, 
— a couple of rooms, perhaps, in a tenement house with the usual 
domestic equipment combined with a tobacco factory. That was 
the kind of judicial decision that Roosevelt so rebelled against, 
and he had been searching for well nigh thirty years for a remedy 
which he thought he had found in the recall of judicial decisions. 
That speech was not the hasty utterance of a demagogue ; it was 
the well-considered opinion of a man who had given the subject 
many years' consideration. I do not ask any one to agree with 
the conclusion that he then reached, but I want every man, woman 
and child throughout the length and breadth of the United States 
to know that Theodore Roosevelt in his advocacy of that policy 
was actuated by the highest motives. [Applause.] 

When in 1914 the fortunes of the Progressive party were at 
their lowest ebb, Roosevelt believed that the American people 
had lost all interest in him, but he was not dismayed. Compare 
his attitude at that time with that of Daniel Webster who, after 
bitter disappointment in his political life and when weakened by 
disease, would exclaim, "Oh, vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" 
Not so with Theodore Roosevelt. No one who heard him say, 
with a cheerful face, that he never was any happier than he was 
at that time could fail to be struck with the fact that his peace of 
mind was not dependent upon any earthly success. Most of his 
fellow citizens then thought that all had gone wrong with a very 
great career, but there were some who believed that his star would 
again be triumphantly in the ascendant, and so it was. 

The moment that war was declared and we needed some mighty 
personality to rally our heterogeneous population, North, South, 
East and West, into an homogeneous whole that stood for America 
and nothing else, his was the voice, his was the personality which 
accomplished that great purpose. [Applause.] And then how 
quickly did his fame revive ! It was not long before he was urged 
to be Governor of the State of New York in 1918 as preliminary 
to his being the nominee of the Republican party for President in 
1920. [Applause.] And he had not changed one of his views 
for which he had formerly been condemned. In every crisis of 
his life he said with Seneca's Pilot, "Oh, Neptune, you may save 
me if you will, you many sink me if you will, but whatever happen, 
I will hold my rudder true." [Applause.] He said it when he 
was in the New York legislature ; he said it when the spoilsmen 
7 



sought to remove him from the Civil Service Commission; he 
said it when he enforced the excise laws in the city of New York 
against almost a united protest; he said it when he gave up his 
duties as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and risked his life in 
Cuba; he said it when, as Governor, he proposed the taxing as 
realty of corporate franchises and was threatened with political 
ruin ; he said it when he was President, and the business interests 
of the country, almost with one voice, protested against his en- 
forcement of the anti-trust laws. He said it in an interview 
with Samuel Gompers, James Duncan, John Mitchell, and other 
members of the Executive Council of the American Federation 
of Labor, when he declared that he was President of all the people 
of the United States, without regard to creed, color, birthplace, 
occupation, or social condition ; that his aim was to do equal and 
exact justice as among them all ; that in the employment and dis- 
missal of men in the government service, he could no more recog- 
nize the fact that a man did not belong to a union, as being for 
or against him, than he could recognize the fact that he was a 
Protestant or a Catholic, or a Jew or a Gentile, as being for or 
against him. He said it in Chicago in that great strike when 
the labor leaders came to him for comfort, and that very night at 
a public dinner he turned to the mayor of the city and said, "Mr. 
Mayor, behind you is the city of Chicago, behind the city of 
Chicago is the State of Illinois, and behind the State of Illinois 
is the Government of the United States." [Applause.] 

What manner of man was this whom we honor here to-night? 
Unlike, certainly unlike any other man we have ever known or 
read about, a character as transparent as a child's, tender in his 
family relations, a faithful friend, but when aroused, in conflict 
terrible, and when engaged in fighting for a great cause he loved 
to ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm. A radical by 
nature, a lover of his fellow men, he delighted to think that his 
support was derived from the plain people, the people from whom 
Abraham Lincoln sprang. He said in 1912 to a friend, "I am 
merely trying to apply the principles of Abraham Lincoln to 
conditions as I find them at the present time." He placed his 
country above his party; he was not a strict party man in the 
sense in which we use that expression or in the sense in which we 
formerly used it. He regarded a party as a means to an end, 
but he thought in 1918 and he would have thought in 1920, as he 
8 



did in 1885, that the Republican party by reason of its traditions 
and its membership was best calculated to safeguard the welfare 
of the United States. [Applause.] 

There never lived a man of wider sympathies than his. He 
was at home in the conferences of ecclesiastics, among men of 
letters, among historians. He was at home upon the plains of the 
West, and in the mining camp, wherever his fellow men were 
honestly and earnestly engaged in some line of human activity. 
After his triumphant passage through Europe, when he got to 
England, he set apart a day to walk through the New Forest with 
Sir Edward Grey, that he might listen to the song birds of Eng- 
land ; and when he got to Liverpool, he telegraphed to Seth Bullock 
and his wife to come and join him because he said by that time 
he felt that he must meet his own people who spoke his neighbor- 
hood dialect. Seth Bullock, you remember, was at one time sheriff 
out in the Black Hills, who said that the first time he saw Roose- 
velt and his companions he thought it was some kind of a tin 
horn gambling outfit that he might need to keep an eye on. 

I cannot refrain from telling two simple little stories, perhaps 
familiar to you, but they admirably illustrate his genius for getting 
next to people. He was out in Colorado hunting, and one of his 
old Rough Riders came to him and said, "Mr. President, I have 
been in jail a year for killing a gentleman." The President said, 
"How did you do it?" The man-killer thought his only interest 
was to know the technique of the operation and he replied at once, 
"38 on a 45 frame." Now, tell me what President of the United 
States from Washington down to and including Wilson [laughter] 
would have received that kind of an answer from a man-killer? 
On another occasion one of his old comrades wrote him from jail, 
"Dear Colonel, I am in trouble. I shot a lady in the eye, but I 
did not intend to hit the lady ; I was shooting at my wife." He 
believed that the Colonel's sympathetic heart would acquit him of 
any evil intention. [Laughter.] 

As time went on and in large mea.sure as a result of his trip to 
South America, illness and suffering became the lot of this great 
man. I have often heard the question asked, "Why did Roosevelt 
risk so valuable a life by going to South America, into that fever- 
laden climate?" The answer is obvious, and it is adequate. H 
he had not possessed the spirit that took him there, he would not 
have possessed the spirit that made him what he was. He paid 
with his body for his soul's desire. [Applause.] 

9 



When he went to his bed on the fifth day of January, 1919, he 
did not know that his end was near, but presently, in the gray of 
the early dawn and while he slept, that mighty spirit released from 
its earthly tabernacle winged its way through the vast spaces to 
take its place among the immortals. That voice that has so often 
summoned great multitudes to his standard is forever stilled. 
That rugged frame which has so frequently resisted exposure, 
hardship and disease and has seemed the very incarnation of a 
vitality which could never be subdued, has at last been overcome. 
That fascinating personality which so long held enthralled multi- 
tudes of his fellow men is now but a memory, and yet Theodore 
Roosevelt still lives. His example will be an inspiration and his 
precepts a guide to generations now unborn. He has taken his 
place for all time among the great leaders of the world. 
[Applause.] 

The CHAIRMAN. While I was listening to the noble tribute 
by which we all have been deeply moved, my eye rested on the pic- 
ture which I hold here. You all have it. It is the last picture 
ever taken of Theodore Roosevelt, and on the lapel of the coat you 
will see the service stars symbolic of the country which he and 
his so greatly loved and served. 

It is my pecuHar pleasure to have conferred upon me to-night 
the distinction of presenting this audience to Theodore Roosevelt's 
sister, Mrs. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson. [Applause, all rising.] 

MRS. CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON. 

Mr. Chairman, Senator Lodge and Mr. Washburn and Mr. Jones, 
Citizens, as I like to say, of an unsurrendered America 
[applause] : 

I want to thank Mr. Coolidge for the privilege that he has given 
me in being present to-night. I want to thank Mr. Washburn for 
words that have made it almost impossible for me to speak, know- 
ing as I do the great unswerving devotion which Mr. Washburn 
gave to my brother and which the President returned in kind. 
It is a great joy to me to speak in the presence of two of his 
dearest friends to-night. We have been with my brother so often 
together that it seems almost as if his spirit were really with us 
to-night. I recall so many loving, charming, enchanting, delight- 
10 



ful hours when we have sat together and talked and thought 
aloud together. 

When I think of my brother the one special character in which 
he comes to niy mind is that of the great sharer. Many people 
think of him as the great statesman ; many people think of him 
as the great public man; many as the great hunter, some as the 
great historian, some as the great naturalist, but to me, his sister, 
the one special thought that always comes into my mind is the 
beauty of that power of sharing everything with those he loved. 
I have felt over and over again that wonderful privilege when 
being with him closely. I have had him talk to me for hours 
and hours. I have had him even listen to me when I have asked 
him not to do something that he wanted very much to do ; I have 
even had him listen to me when I have asked him not to say 
something that he wanted very much to say. And so I have had 
that wonderful closeness of relationship, and I think perhaps from 
me to-night you will like to hear one or two little intimate things 
that will show what that relationship was. 

Amongst other things I go back in my mind and think of him 
as a little delicate boy in the nursery in the house in Twentieth 
street when my brother Elliott and I even younger but less delicate 
children were always asking for a story. And Theodore Roose- 
velt in those days, delicate as he was, breathing terribly with that 
curse of asthma that was on him, never refused the story to the 
two younger ones in the nursery. I can see him now on the rather 
high chair, leaning forward because of this great difficulty in 
breathing, but telling us, in spite of that effort, the kind of wonder- 
ful story that I used to say in later years Mr. Kipling himself 
would have envied, for in all those stories in the Twentieth-street 
nursery there was always a marvelous impersonation of an animal ; 
there was always a boy, the boy that Kipling calls Mowgli, the boy 
that lived in the heart of my brother Theodore Roosevelt. And 
those stories went on from year to year. 

And then later when grown more powerful, as Mr. Washburn 
says, more powerful because of his determination to make his own 
body, which he accomplished by sheer, absolute determination and 
will-power, I remember the lovely long days at Oyster Bay when 
we were all children together, the days in the boats, the little tiny 
boats. He never wanted a big boat ; he wanted a little boat that 
was always nearly swamped in the Sound in the big waves. He 

11 



didn't want to sail, he wanted to row ; he wanted that hard manual 
labor. He wanted to have a bigger wave than the boat could 
quite get over ; he wanted to have a big neck of land that he pulled 
the boat over himself. He was always a person who wanted an 
obstacle to overcome, and he always wanted to go over and 
through and never around. And that attitude was characteristic 
from his early boyhood. 

Then as time went on the sharing quality seemed to grow 
stronger and stronger. I remember very well when he went to 
the Assembly, and that first winter we were all living at my 
mother's house, for he did not take a house then in Albany ; and 
when he would come back for Sundays and holidays we would 
say, "We are going to share Theodore, and Theodore is going to 
share all his experiences with us." And even in those early days, 
as you know very well, he became a feature in the country; he 
became in fact so much of a feature, although only twenty-two 
years old, that one of my earliest and most poignant memories is 
the time that he was invited by a very high-brow club called the 
Nineteenth Century Club to come down and speak before it in 
his native city. The Nineteenth Century Club had for its presi- 
dent a gentleman who did not care very much for Theodore Roose- 
velt, but he was invited because people were talking about him. 
The president of the Club did not care for Henry Cabot Lodge 
either, for he was the editor of the New York Evening Post. 
Theodore Roosevelt was already talked about. You might like 
him or dislike him, but you always talked about him. And in 
those days at twenty-two, just as later in life, he was being talked 
about. And so the high-brow club invited him to come and speak 
to it, and he came, and I — who always went everywhere with him 
all his life long whenever I could — with great interest and with 
great pride at the age of seventeen went to hear his maiden speech 
in a great hall in his native city. Seated in that hall was the 
coldest, least interested audience that could be imagined, and I 
think it is a most potent fact to remember that there, in this first 
speech he ever made in his native city, he chose the subject which 
was the subject of the last lines he ever wrote from his sick bed 
at Oyster Bay. 

The plan of the evening was this: The speaker chose his sub- 
ject and spoke half an hour, and then the speaker who was to reply 
was given twenty minutes to rebut all the arguments of the first 
12 



speaker, and then the first speaker was given ten minutes more 
in which to rebut the rebutter! I can still hear Theodore Roose- 
velt speaking before that audience, having chosen the subject 
which he had already deep in his heart and on which later he was 
to ring the changes through his whole life, the subject "Ameri- 
canism". I believe it is appropriate at this moment to remember 
that that was the whole tenor of the subject of Theodore Roose- 
velt's life. And I see him now. He came forward, eager, ardent, 
and began to speak to this cold audience and began to explain 
what he thought Americanism meant. And he spoke for half an 
hour urgently, anxious to make them think as he did. And I sat 
down there below realizing already that the audience did not care 
one bit about Americanism or Theodore Roosevelt. And then he 
sat down with little, very little, very faint applau.se. 

Then the man who had been chosen to answer him was intro- 
duced, St. Clair McKelway, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. He 
was a man with a considerable reputation as an orator and pro- 
ceeded to wipe up the floor, so to speak, with his twenty-two- 
year-old opponent. He got up and began in a rather sneering 
fashion with the statement that every "ism" was a fad. He began 
with spiritualism, and all the fads of hypnotism and turning to 
fanaticism, tore all the "isms" to shreds, and the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury Club became quite excited and thought this was a most 
magnificent orator and listened with great interest, and I became 
frightfully worried. I had that uncomfortable feeling that made 
me wish to crawl away and hide. And suddenly I saw a smile 
come on my brother's face, the smile that every one of you knows 
who has ever seen him when he was replying to a heckler in a 
crowd, and that smile gave me a sense of confidence and I knew 
that I need worry no more. Then Mr. McKelway sat down and 
the Club rose and cheered him. 

My brother rose again and he came forward almost into the 
audience, he was so determined and so ardent, and he leaned over 
to this unsympathetic audience and he almost shouted at them as 
he began, "I have ten minutes in which to reply to my adversary ; 
I don't want ten minutes ; I only want one minute, and in that one 
minute I will ask you one question, and as you answer that ques- 
tion you will answer as to whether I have won in this debate or my 
adversary: If every 'ism' is a fad, what about patriotism?" 
[Applause.] 

13 



What about patriotism? That was the question that Theodore 
Roosevelt asked his fellow citizens all his life. I used to tell 
him in those days that were so hard for him to bear when the man 
who "kept us out of war" kept Leonard Wood and Theodore 
Roosevelt out of war, when that man was doing as we all know 
he did before he was the great altruist that he has now become — 
in those hard days when he wanted, Theodore Roosevelt wanted 
so much to offer his life for the countries whom he called Allies, 
not associates — when he wanted that possibility of sacrifice beyond 
measure, I remember I used to say to him, "After all, Theodore, 
there are so many that would gladly give their lives for their 
country in its day of need," there is not one single one of us here 
that would not bare our breasts to any bullet if America's abso- 
lute need was in question, "but the same people who go forth in 
a great war, in a great crisis, in a great cataclysm, do nothing 
during the days of commonplace peace at home." And the dif- 
ference between Theodore Roosevelt and those other people was 
that he gave his life for his country, not only in a crisis but every 
moment of that life. [Applause.] 

There is the difference. There is the difference. That is true 
patriotism. That is true Americanism. Ambition is an easy thing 
to translate into action, but the every day quality of thinking first 
of America, that is the thing that is achieved by few and for that 
reason and for no other reason so greatly as for that reason, 
does every single American, I think, in this whole country when 
patriotism or Americanism is mentioned turn in his thoughts 
towards Theodore Roosevelt. 

I want to read to you in closing a couple of extracts from two 
letters that he wrote. They are, I think, very interesting. I am 
sure that Senator Lodge will be especially interested in one extract, 
because there has been so much discussion in the past as to 
whether Theodore Roosevelt did or did not say that he would not 
take a third term in connection with the presidency. So much 
has been said about that "third cup of coffee" in the past that I 
consider it a very interesting fact that the other day in looking 
over a number of old letters, as I myself am compiling a few 
memories of my brother, I came across this letter written to me 
in 1908. It, I think, will settle that question forever. Generally 
the things for which Theodore Roosevelt has been criticised are 
eventually settled in the way that is to his credit, and this is an 
14 



interesting and human document. It was written to me, and I 
made this extract from it especially for this dinner, because I 
thought it would interest you all. It was written from the White 
House in 1908. He says : 

"My English friends are incapable of understanding 
the reason for my view in not accepting a renomination, 
and they think it due to weakness or some fantastic scru- 
ple on my part. My theory has always been that the 
presidency should be a very powerful office and the Presi- 
dent a powerful man who will take advantage of his 
power, but as a corollary, a man who can be held to ac- 
countability to the people after a term of four years and 
who will not in any event occupy the position for more 
than eight years at a stretch." 

That is a valuable piece of evidence in the case, and I was glad 
indeed to run across this special letter. 

The other letter shows him in his great sorrow, and shows the 
spirit with which he met that great and appalling blow of Quentin's 
death. That spirit is so stimulating to all who have to meet 
sorrow that I wanted also to bring it to you, for it was written 
so short a while before he died. It was from Dark Harbor, 
Maine, August, 1918, and he says: 

"After all, when the young die at the crest of life in 
the golden morn, the degrees of difference of sorrow are 
only degrees in bitterness. Yet there is nothing more 
foolish and cowardly than to be beaten down by sorrow 
which nothing we can do will change." 

For that reason in July, 1918, almost at the moment that he heard 
of Quentin's death, when he was due in Saratoga to make a speech 
at the informal convention of his own state, he insisted upon keep- 
ing the engagement. And I shall never forget how he came into 
that great assembly holding his head high, although the news of 
his boy's death had just come to him, and when he met me after- 
wards he said, "Of course I went. It was even more necessary 
for me to go than before, for I have preached strength and I 
have preached patriotism above all else in the world, and this is 
the moment when my patriotism is proved, for they need me in the 
councils of the Republican party." 
15 



When he was lying on his sick bed, not his death bed, for it was 
nine months before he died, but when he had been taken in 
February, 1918, to the Roosevelt Hospital, we thought one night 
that he was dying, and they sent for me. He sent for me, and 
my sister-in-law who came out of the sick room said that the 
doctors had just told her that they did not think he would Hve 
through the night. She said to me, "He wants to say a few words 
to you. You must be very calm, for perhaps if he moves his 
head to the right or left it will be less likely that he can recover. 
Put your head close to his lips, for he will not be content until he 
has said these words to you." He thought they would be his 
last words to me. They were so like him. I was not with him 
when he finally departed on the night of January 6, 1919, but 
this time when I came in the room and leaned down to him — it 
was in 1918, and that terrible message had just come to us from 
General Haig that the English troops were with their backs to 
the wall, and all his four sons were at the front, every one of them, 
and my son also — as I leaned my head down to his lips, this was 
what he said : "I am glad that it is not one of my boys, for they 
can die for their country." [Applause, all rising.] 

The CHAIRMAN. The leader of the United States Senate, 
the Qiairman of the great Committee on Foreign Relations, an 
honor to his state and to his country, Henry Cabot Lodge. 
[Applause and cheers, all rising.] 

Mrs. ROBINSON. He will be known in the ages to come as 
the savior of American independence. [Applause.] 

HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE. 

Mr. Chairman, my Fellozv Members of the Middlesex Club : 

I do not wish to draw any distinction by the use of the word 
"fellow"; I include both sexes in the word. [Laughter.] 

It is always a pleasure to come here, and the pleasure now that 
I connect with the Middlesex Club is always enhanced by the 
thought that it was permitted to me to make the motion, unani- 
mously adopted, that the Club should set aside the 27th of October 
to commemorate Theodore Roosevelt. 

After the beautiful speech made by Mr. Washburn, his class- 
mate, his intimate and devoted friend, his biographer, and after 
16 



the speech made by Theodore Roosevelt's sister, whose eloquence 
and charm, known to some of us for many, many years, have 
in this past year become the possession not only of a great 
party but of the country itself, after such speakers I feel no little 
embarrassment in trying to say anything at all on the man who is 
uppermost in our minds to-night. I should like to speak of him 
personally, of some of those traits which were more known to those 
who were closest to him than to the world at large, but I will say 
to you frankly that I cannot trust myself to do so. The wound is 
too deep, the sorrow is too near. 

But I think that I can and that I ought to speak in regard to 
him as a public man and in regard to his attitude, as I understand 
it, and as I think I may say I know it, in relation to certain ques- 
tions which have been absorbing the attention of the American 
people. I want to speak to you of his Americanism, to which 
Mrs. •Robinson has so beautifully referred. He never needed but 
he always heeded Emerson's injunction to have the passion for 
America cast out the passion for Europe. The love of his coun- 
try, the thought of his country were the guiding impulses of his 
whole life. 

I do not want you to think from that that he was not a master of 
foreign relations or that he did not understand foreign countries. 
No President, very few men that I have ever heard of, had equal 
knowledge with that of Theodore Roosevelt with regard to all 
the countries of our western civilization. I do not mean to limit 
it there. He had a great knowledge of some countries that did 
not belong to western civilization. But his minute knowledge of 
the past of all nations, owing to his astonishing power of acquisi- 
tion and an iron memory, I have never seen equalled. 

I remember on one occasion there was a very distinguished 
Englishman, holding a very high office, in Washington, and I 
asked Theodore to come and meet him at dinner. He was one of 
those Englishmen of whom there are many who was very much 
in search of information on all subjects, and I mentioned this and 
said, "I want you to come and meet him," and Theodore said, 
"I am just the man." [Laughter.] "I do not suppose there is 
anybody living who has so many kinds of useless knowledge as 
I have." [Laughter.] And after dinner I heard him talking 
to this Englishman, and he was very distinguished, held an im- 
portant office, and was in search of information, about the racial 
17 



origin of all the athletes of America [laughter], the men of the 
prize ring, the men who played baseball, the men who played 
football, and I saw my distinguished guest pulling out his cuflf, 
taking out his pencil. The moment I caught the conversation 
they were talking about football, and Theodore said, "Now, there 
is the great Yale quarterback"— it is a great many years ago— 
"there is the great all- American Yale quarterback; his name is 
HefTelfinger ; he is of German descent," and the Englishman said, 
"How very interesting!" [laughter] and wrote it down on his 
cuff. And I felt that Theodore Roosevelt had justified his state- 
ment that he had a wider variety of useless knowledge than any- 
body I have ever known. 

But useless knowledge generally turned out pretty useful in his 
hands, and he had this remarkable knowledge of foreign relations 
in the past, of the history of foreign countries, and the most dis- 
tinct and clear conception of how foreign questions when they 
arose should be dealt with by the Government of the United States. 

I have been led off a little from the point of Americanism, but 
I am coming to it. The two men in our history whom Theodore 
Roosevelt most admired were Washington and Abraham Lincoln. 
In the questions with which he was immediately engaged and 
with which he is most associated in our minds, the sympathy, as 
Mr. Washburn has said, for the weak and the helpless, the en- 
deavor to make things better for humanity in his own country— 
in that he turned I think most often to Lincoln. When the shock 
of war came he turned to the man who urged upon the country 
again and again that the way to preserve peace was to be prepared 
for war. 

I want to call attention to the fact, as I started to speak of 
Americanism, that one reason for his admiration of Washington 
was that he felt that Washington was a great American. Mr. 
Matthew Arnold said that Washington was an English squire. 
If he was, it seems to me at times as if he had got over it. 
[Laughter.] Of course, he was born a subject of King George, 
but when he got through there were no Americans subjects of 
King George. I am going to read one or two extracts from his 
letters. 

This is an extract from a letter of Washington to the Earl of 
Buchan, dated April 22, 1793 : 



"I believe it is the sincere wish of United America to 
have nothing to do with the pohtical intrigues or the 
squabbles of. European nations ; but, on the contrary, to 
exchange commodities and live in peace and amity with 
all the inhabitants of the earth ; and this I am persuaded 
they will do, if rightfully it can be done." 

In 1795 he wrote to Patrick Henry: 

"In a word, I want an American character, that the 
powers of Europe may be convinced that we act for our- 
selves and not for others." 

And then again he wrote to Timothy Pickering less than a year 

later: 

"Do justice to all and never forget that we are Ameri- 
cans, the remembrance of which will convince us that we 
ought not to be French or English." 

And I read from the bottom of this card which I hold in my 
hand: 

"I believe we have room for but one soul loyalty, and 
that is loyalty to the American people." 

How well they go together. After leaving the presidency Wash- 
ington wrote to Thomas Pinckney : 

"It remains to be seen whether our country will stand 
upon independent ground or be directed in its political 
concerns by any other nation. A little time will show us 
who are its true friends or, what is synonymous, who are 
true Americans." 

And then there is the Farewell Address. I have heard a dis- 
tinguished speaker say to a great audience when he mentioned 
Washington's Farewell Address, "Don't laugh." There was not 
the slightest intention of laughing on the part of the audience, but 
the speaker thought it well to begin with that apology. I make 
no apology for quoting from Washington, and I am only going 
to read two or three short passages from the Farewell Address 
which I ask you to consider. 

19 



"The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign 
nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have 
with them as little political connection as possible. So 
far as we have already formed engagements, let them 
be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. 

"Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us 
have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be 
engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which 
are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, 
it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artifi- 
cial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or 
the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friend- 
ships or enmities." 

The answer that I hear made to that is that Washington lived 
a long time ago. He did; he could not help it. But I some- 
times think that he would be a bold man who should say that 
Washington would wish to be living in this distracted and tor- 
tured world which we are now in at this moment. 

In his message to Congress on July 4, 1861, speaking of the 
ofificers of the regular army from the seceding States who had 
remained true to the government of the Union, Lincoln said: 

"This is the patriotic instinct of the plain people. 
They understand, without an argument, that the destroy- 
ing of the Government which was made by Washington 
means no good to them." 

Now, I come to our third great American. On December 21, 
1918, I made a speech in the Senate in which I discussed the 
fourteen points. There were fourteen points then. They have 
become somewhat of an historical antiquity since ; most of them 
have gone. [Laughter.] I also discussed some of the momentous 
questions raised by the proposition for a League of Nations. 
Colonel Roosevelt wrote an article in the Kansas City Star upon 
that speech, approving it and commending it. I read a single 
paragraph from it : 

"Our need is not as great as that of the vast scattered 
British Empire, for our domains are pretty much in a 
ring fence. We ought not to undertake the task of polic- 
20 



ing Europe, Asia and Northern Africa ; neither ought we 
to permit any interference with the Monroe doctrine, 
or any attempt by Europe or Asia to police America. 
Mexico is our Balkan Peninsula. Some day we will 
have to deal with it. All the coasts and islands which in 
any way approach the Panama Canal must be dealt with 
by this nation, and by this nation in accordance with the 
Monroe doctrine." 

On January 3, 1919,— the Friday before his death— he dictated 
another editorial which appeared in the Kansas City Star after 
his death. I wish time would permit me to read it all, but I will 
read only one paragraph: 

.... "Let each nation reserve to itself and for its 
own decision, and let it clearly set forth, questions which 
are non-justiciable. . . . Finally, make it perfectly 
clear that we do not intend to take a position of an in- 
ternational Meddlesome Mattie. The American people 
do not wish to go into an overseas war unless for a very 
great cause, and where the issue is absolutely plain. 
Therefore, we do not wish to undertake the responsibility 
of sending our gallant young men to die in obscure fights 
in the Balkans or in Central Europe, or in a war we do 
not approve of. Moreover, the American people do not 
intend to give up the Monroe doctrine. Let civilized 
Europe and Asia introduce some kind of police system 
in the weak and disorderly countries at their thresholds. 
But let the United States treat Mexico as our Balkan 
Peninsula and refuse to allow European or Asiatic powers 
to interfere on this continent in any way that implies per- 
manent or semi-permanent possession. Every one of our 
Allies will with delight grant this request if President 
Wilson chooses to make it, and it will be a great mis- 
fortune if it is not made." 

I think I have shown pretty well the almost complete identity 
of view of Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, and the secret 
of it is that they were all Americans, devoted to America, not 
unmindful of the rest of the world, not unmindful of their duties 
to humanity ; not one of them wanted the American people to be 
21 



neglectful of their duties to humanity, but they felt that if they 
had a duty to other nations, they also had a duty and a higher duty 
to the people of the United States [applause] and that the true 
path to enable us to render the greatest service to humanity and 
the rest of the world was to strengthen and build up and hold 
firm the United States. 

Lincoln gave his life to the preservation of the American Union. 
Washington served all his life either in the army or in the presi- 
dency, first to free America, then to make America great and 
respected. Roosevelt's whole life from his boyhood to the end 
was given to America primarily. When he dealt with foreign 
nations he thought as an American and he did his duty to the rest 
of the world as thoroughly as any President we have ever had. 
He did not forget, for example, his duty to the world when he 
carried through the Panama Canal which was a great benefit to 
mankind. And that is what is the characteristic of all those three 
great men. 

I have read to you those extracts because I wished to lay 
before you one or two of the things which Theodore Roosevelt 
said himself in a public way. But I think on an occasion like 
this I may be permitted to say that I was with him for two morn- 
ings just a week before his death. He had not then returned to 
Oyster Bay; he was in the hospital. He went just after I saw 
him. Mrs. Robinson was present on one occasion, I think on 
both, certainly on one. We had two long conversations and we 
discussed very fully the situation which confronted the country 
at that moment. The first draft of the Covenant of the League 
of Nations had not then been published, but enough had come to us 
to show very clearly what was intended and what we might ex- 
pect in the draft. We were able to discuss the substance of it 
from the dispatches which had been received and I can only say — 
I won't undertake to repeat the conversation; we went into the 
whole subject — and I can only say, and I say it in this presence 
with all the solemnity possible, that I believe I know exactly 
what his policy and beliefs then were, and I am certain that I 
have not deviated from them in what I have done or tried to do 
since his death in one particular. [Applause.] I do not say that 
for the sake of escaping responsibility. All I have done and said 
I have done on my own responsibility and I am quite ready to 
bear it. But I say it because I want you to know that the strongest 
22 



inspiration I had came from those talks with Theodore Roosevelt 
when he was very ill but when none of us thought his death was 
so near, and it is a comfort and a happiness to me to think that 
whatever may befall I have at least followed that inspiration from 
a man whose love and devotion to America no one can ever contest, 
and whose great character and whose splendid service are already 
part of the finest portion of the history of our country. 

I am going to read one or two more extracts by way of explana- 
tion: 

"The Republican party purposes in the realm of inter- 
national affairs such an association of nations as will most 
effectively further the aspiration for world-wide and 
permanent peace without sacrificing any part of the inde- 
pendence of the American nation. It believes that 
America can and must bear its full part in the responsi- 
bilities of the world, but it always believes that America 
alone must decide what that part must be." [Applause.] 

If you still have in your mind those two extracts of President 
Roosevelt's from the Kansas City Star you will see that it is the 
inspiration of that paragraph. I will read one more : 

"As soon as possible after my election I shall advise 
with the best minds in the United States and especially 
I shall consult in advance with the Senate, with whom, 
by the terms of the Constitution, I shall indeed be bound 
to counsel and without whose consent no such inter- 
national association can be formed. I shall do this to the 
end that we shall have an association of nations for the 
promotion of international peace, but one which shall so 
definitely safeguard our sovereignty and recognize our 
ultimate and unmortgaged freedom of action that it will 
have back of it, not a divided and distracted sentiment, 
but the united support of the American people." 
[Applause.] 

I need not say to you after reading them that those extracts are 
taken from two recent speeches by Senator Harding [applause], 
and I think they are inspired by the same spirit that you find in 
Washington's farewell address, in Lincoln's message, in Roose- 
velt's utterances, and that is, by a spirit of Americanism. 
23 



Fault has been found by Mr. Cox in his pleasant way [laughter] 
with the words which have been much used in this campaign, 
"America first." What country does he propose to put first, if 
not America? [Laughter and applause.] Are we in our pursuit 
of aid to other countries to forget America? We went to the 
Peace Table in Paris. I say We. [Laughter.] Mr. Wilson 
went to the Peace Table in Paris. We were still following- 
nobody had proposed changing it — we were still following as we 
have for one hundred and thirty years the policies of Washington 
and of Monroe, and we went there after a war in which we had 
lent to the people whom Mr. Wilson then declined to call our 
Allies ten billions of dollars ; we had two million men fighting on 
the soil of France ; we had two million more ready to cross the 
sea or in camp in this country. And I am going to repeat now a 
few words that I have said many times elsewhere, because it 
seems to me to go to the very root of the subject. We had done 
our part ; we did not go as soon as I think we ought to have gone. 
If we had gone earlier we should have saved months of fighting 
and thousands, perhaps millions of precious lives, and billions of 
hard-earned treasure. But we went, and when we went with 
these great loans, these four million men, our coming was decisive. 
I say it in no boastful way. No one admires more than I the magni- 
ficent fighting of England by land and by sea, or the equally splen- 
did fighting of France. No one can say anything too high for the 
stand they made. They fought as they did under Aetius when 
they drove back the Huns of another time at Chalons. And the 
same is true of Italy and of Belgium. I have nothing but praise 
for one and all of them. But the war had reached a point 
when we came with our masses of men, our untouched resources 
of money depicted by a great French cartoonist who published a 
picture representing the Kaiser crouching before an angel and 
behind him the whole scene is filled with marching troops, and 
he is saying to the angel whose wings, I may say, bear the Stars 
and Stripes, "What formidable fleet has brought these masses of 
men to Europe?" and the angel replies, "The Lusitania." We 
came at the moment when Russia had fallen away, the moment 
of crucial danger, and we flung our sword into the scale and 
turned it in the cause of victory and civilization. 

And then we appeared at the council table. The other nations 
all have taken territory; they seek money also for reparation; 
24 



I do not grudge them a dollar or a foot of land. We took nothing. 
We asked nothing, and we got nothing. And I am prouder of 
that than anything else. 

But what is it that comes to us now when we are presented 
with a Covenant of a League of Nations which many of us, I 
believe a great majority of the American people, distrust in their 
inmost soul, and are told that this is the only way of peace ; that 
the ways of peace described by Lincoln, by Washington, by 
Roosevelt no longer hold good? The great cause of peace is not 
shut up in the four corners of the napkin which contains the 
Covenant of the League of Nations. And when they come to us, 
what do they say ? "Give, give, give." Yes, we are ready to give ; 
we always have been and we are ready to-day. Senator Harding 
says : "We propose to help the cause of peace and do our duty. 
But if it is simply, 'Give, give,' I claim for the United States, and 
that is all I claim, that we have the right to say when we shall give 
and what we shall give and how we shall give." [Applause, all 
rising.] 

The CHAIRMAN. When Sam Powers glorified the place 
which I now occupy he ordained a chaplain for the Middlesex 
Club, and recognizing the country-wide interest and affiliations of 
this mar\'elous organization, he did not confine himself to Boston 
or Massachusetts in selecting a man for that holy office. He 
went to Georgia and he conferred the honor upon an eloquent 
divine who has spoken here more than once, with whose eloquence 
we have all of us been charmed and whom we are delighted now to 
listen to again. Rev. M. Ashby Jones of Atlanta, Georgia. 
[Applause, all rising.] 

REV. M. ASHBY JONES. 

Mr. President, Mrs. Robinson, and I feel I have a right to say, 
My Very Dear Friends of the Middlesex Club : 

I have felt indeed this evening as if I were an intruder walking 
on very sacred ground. To hear beloved personal friends of 
Theodore Roosevelt speak so genuinely out of their hearts would 
in itself make me feel as if no other word should be spoken, but 
when one nearer and dearer than friend itself, with a spirit so 
like her great brother, came at such a sacrifice this evening and 
25 



poured the libation of her own heart upon the altar of her deep 
devotion, I feel it wrong that I should say any word more, if it 
were not, Mrs. Robinson, that I come this evening from your 
mother state to bear to you the greetings and the genuine admira- 
tion of Georgia for your great brother. To-night in Atlanta 
the leading citizens of that city gather around a board like this 
and remember the day when there was born this great American. 
Now that I am on my feet will you trust a preacher not to 
preach a long sermon, and will you trust me simply to speak? 
I need hardly say that I am not presuming for a moment to bring 
to this audience, and certainly not in this presence, anything new 
about the one in whose honor we meet this evening. But would 
it be of interest to get the standpoint of a Southerner, his view- 
point of Theodore Roosevelt? It is very difficult to make any just 
appraisement of a personality. It is hard to tell the worth of a 
man because we look at one another so much from the angles of 
race, of caste, of color, of party, of sect, of section, and over and 
over again we are tempted to judge men by their relationship to my 
race or my party or my section. We need the perspective of years 
rightly to appraise the worth of men with their different psychic 
environment and the differences of origin, of social and political 
conditions. Instinctively all of us look to that day when there 
shall be some perfect judgment rendered and when the words of 
Meg Merrilles to Guy Mannering shall indeed come true, 

"That Bertram's right and Bertram's might 
Should meet on Ellangowan height" — 

a day when men shall drop the cloak of custom, the cloak of 
fanaticism, when they shall stand naked of all name and all title, 
and bear the inspection of the realities. 

A great Teacher once said there should be such a day, indenti- 
fying himself marvelously with the human race, the greatest to 
the least. He said: "Inasmuch as ye ministered unto one of 
these, my brethren, ye ministered unto me or inasmuch as ye minis- 
tered not, ye ministered not to me." I think in saying this He was 
laying down a new formula for the judgment of men. Not as a 
man is to race or color or sect or section, but as a man is to a 
man, so is the man. After all when we come to think about that 
it is inevitable. You cannot think of a man by himself if you 
26 



want to appraise the work of any man. Appraise him in terms 
of a relationship to other men. You cannot think of a man alone ; 
you always think of him in terms of his relationship as father 
or son or brother or friend or neighbor or citizen, and these rela- 
tionships multiply so across man's personality, as he fulfills or 
fails in these relationships, so is the personality. 

I tell you, you cannot read the biography of any man save in 
terms of other men. The world knows Socrates to-day because of 
Plato and Xenophon and Aristotle. Aye, the world knows Jesus 
to-day only because of a Matthew, a Luke, a John, a Peter. You 
only know any man as you know his impress and impact upon the 
life of others. 

How startlingly significant is this when applied to the life of 
Theodore Roosevelt ! You cannot think of Roosevelt alone. The 
pictures that imperishably impress themselves on the loving 
memory of America to-day of Roosevelt are the pictures of 
Roosevelt and his boys or Roosevelt and his Rough Riders or 
Roosevelt and the children of the tenement districts of New York, 
always Roosevelt and some group of human life into which he 
had translated the purest wine of his spirit, Roosevelt in relation 
to others all the time. And if you want to read his biography 
you will find that is true. I think I shall not be misunderstood, 
Mrs. Robinson, when I say that the book that was least interest- 
ing to me of Mr. Roosevelt's was his own life. He could not tell 
his own life; he could state his incidents and he did with charming 
grace. Aye, but to know his life we have got to know the New 
York policemen of the early '80's ; we have got to know politicians 
of Albany of those days; we have got to know the cowboy of 
the far-flung plains of the West ; we have got to know authors, 
musicians and artists. Aye, it seems to me most of all we have 
got to know the motherhood and the childhood of America. Not 
until they come and bear their testimony shall the full-orbed 
personality of this well-nigh matchless man stand silhouetted in 
vividness before the world. 

I have sought to find some one word that would be most char- 
acteristic of Theodore Roosevelt, one that should include some- 
thing of the sweep of his interests, something of the arena of his 
activities, something of the ideals of his heart. I find it in the 
word human, touching life in all the sweep of its wonderful inter- 
ests, — human. I think of him in all of the relationships of his 
27 



life, his marvelous versatility. There was no nook or cranny of 
this old world of ours that was sacred or secure from his prying 
eyes, and yet he approached all the world from the standpoint of 
the interests of humanity. Whether it was the limitless possibili- 
ties of its development, whether it was the garnering of its fruit- 
age, whether it was the preservation of all its splendid resources, 
it was always for humanity, the idea of gathering all of the forces 
and possibilities of the world and putting them at the service and 
the ministering of human life. 

I am not thinking when I use the word human simply that he 
had those primary instincts of manhood. He had. Theodore 
Roosevelt was known, he was recognized by every man as his 
brother. Marvelous truth! Though of a preferred heritage, 
reared in an environment for the cultivation of character that was 
marvelously rich and pure, yet I think I could say certainly that 
never had he met a man, whether in a ward meeting for political 
counsel or out on the plains of the West, whether in laboratory or 
workshop, whether at home or abroad — I believe he never met 
a man that he did not recognize in some subtle certain way that 
that man was kin to him. 

I am very far from saying that he was not discriminating in his 
judgment. No man was more so. Some of the severest criti- 
cisms, and I think some of the most unjust criticisms of men, 
came showing that he made his decided differences in the person- 
alities of men, and yet even his severest criticisms I think have 
sprung from Roosevelt's deepest faith in the possibility of human 
life. He believed in a man just because he was a man ; he believed 
he was made in God's image ; he believed there sleep possibilities 
beneath the very secrets of the soul's faculties and forces that 
needed to be called into existence to find expression. Aye, but if 
the man did not play the part of a man, if a man shirked, no 
matter whether in the battlefield or in his own God-given respon- 
sibilities of citizenship at home — if the man shirked, then over and 
over again there leaped like the liquid lava from his lips the damn- 
ing condemnation of a man who had the possibilities of a man and 
failed to be a man. 

I love his words that live in the memory of men. Others have 

used them. Yes, but we forget they have. No one else could say, 

"A man is straight," like he could. Aye, and I stand here to-night 

violating none of the proprieties of the occasion when I say that I 

28 



ha%'e differed with Mr. Roosevelt over and over again. No man 
could make me madder, except my wife [laughter] , and he did over 
and over again. Yet in looking back to-night with all the critical 
eye that I can, I care not how many mistakes he may have made 
in his life, I dare any man to say that this American was not as 
straight as any American that ever lived. [Applause.] 

I believe that Mr. Roosevelt was the first man who ever sounded 
the human note in practical politics. Many of us had talked in 
academic terms; many had theorized; many political platforms 
had been written. Nay, but he first translated political life from 
the law of supply and demand to the "square deal". He first 
took out the list of abstractions that mechanical allegiance that told 
of America and put it into the hearts of undernourished babes or 
overburdened mothers with the hope of a square deal and a fair 
chance to every American. 

Think what you please about his methods. Discuss afterwards 
if you want any specific legislation that he may have proposed or 
enacted. All of them may be forgotten. But in the years to 
come I believe that America will never forget Theodore Roosevelt 
who for a time at least made our political life to throb with the 
passion of a human heart. [Applause.] I lay emphasis on that, 
that he translated this human note into practical politics. 

As I read Mr. Roosevelt's life, there was little of the philosopher 
in his make-up. He says himself that he was a practical idealist ; 
he says himself that he went into politics with no particular 
theories. I would add, but when a great human need arose he 
did not dwell long in abstraction. There was something in the 
very make-up of the man— and I say it with reverence— there was 
something in the very make-up of the man that just as soon as 
an idea — an idea of human justice or human right — took posses- 
sion of his heart, it must have a Bethlehem birth and it came forth 
and walked among us. There was something that compelled the 
man's very nature to take these ideas and translate them into life. 

I have followed him in fancy as he walked as a young man some 
torrid midnight through the slums of New York with Jacob Riis 
or some one else. He saw the things just as they were. I think 
he looked as few men have ever looked underneath even the sur- 
face of the filth, the stench of the horrid exteriors of human life 
and saw their causes. Practical, yes. Aye, but he had a spirit- 
ual vision. He saw Five Points as it was. Aye, but he saw 
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something more. He saw the Five Points as it could be, and 
for Theodore Roosevelt to see what is and then what can be, 
was to see what ought to be, and instantly to throw the force and 
weight of his personality for its accomplishment. 

I love that vision, the very last that is given in the Book that 
I love very- dearly. It is the old prophet on the Isle of Patmos, 
and he is writing, and he says, "I see a new Jerusalem." He had 
seen the old. "I see a new Jeruselem coming down out of heaven." 
Aye, but coming down out of heaven to earth. Practical ideal- 
ism. Oh, Theodore Roosevelt dreamed dreams, too, and dreamed 
dreams of new Jerusalems, but he cared for no Jerusalem that you 
could not get down on earth. [Applause.] 

He dreamed dreams and then he dared to translate his dreams 
into facts. I will not misuse your patience and your verj- lovely 
courtesy to one who has come a long way to pay his tribute to 
one he loved very dearly, but simply recall the last scene, because 
I did not have the privilege of seeing Mr. Roosevelt often. This 
was on his visit to Richmond, Virginia, while he was still Presi- 
dent. May I say that my father, an old Confederate soldier, 
declared to me he would not go to see him. Finally I persuaded 
him, but he would not come with us to the luncheon, and after- 
wards he went over and sat in his old Confederate uniform with 
the boys from the Soldiers' Home, all in gray. It was just in 
front of the mansion of Robert Edward Lee that the stand was 
erected. Out yonder it seemed to me was a never-ending sea 
of faces. Over here to the right were the old fellows from the 
Soldiers' Home. As I sat on the stand I just some way knew 
that Roosevelt was going to see them though he was sitting at the 
time with his back to them. While they were introducing him to 
the crowd, by some subtle magnetism of the spirit his eyes turned 
that way, and the moment he rose, instead of turning away to 
the great audience here, he turned to those old fellows on the out- 
skirts and he beckoned to them saying, "Come closer," and they 
came, my father with them, and then he said to them, "I honor 
you as I honor any man who fights for the right as God gives 
him to see the right." I never had to persuade my father again 
to go to see Theodore Roosevelt. He won the hearts of Confeder- 
ate and Union alike, for there was the great beat of a human 
heart within his own soul, and, men and women of America, 
to-night I look toward the future despite all confusion, I look 

30 



toward the future as toward the rising sun because I beheve that 
the words of Theodore Roosevelt have rung around this continent, 
"Come closer." Come closer to the passion of his own heart 
and let his spirit lead you into the unknown days undaunted, be- 
cause his leadership is ever upward. [Applause, all rising.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Before we separate to meet again a year 
from now Mrs. Robinson wishes to say one parting word. 

Mrs. ROBINSON. I would like very much to read a few 
lines written by a friend of mine, a very short poem which to me 
expresses my brother more than anything else really that has 
been written about him. It was written by Arthur Guiterman. 
It is very simple and very short, and he called it "Our Colonel". 
He always said there only was one colonel. 

Deep loving, well knowing 

His world and its blindness, 
A heart overflowing 

With measureless kindness, 

Undaunted in labor 

(And Death was a trifle), 
Steel-true as a sabre, 

Direct as a rifle, 

All Man in his doing. 

All Boy in his laughter, 
He fronted, unruing, 

The Now and Hereafter, 

A storm-battling cedar, 

A comrade, a brother — 
Oh, such was our Leader, 

Beloved as no other ! 

When weaker souls faltered 

His courage remade us 
Whose tongue never paltered, 

Who never betrayed us. 
31 



His hand on your shoulder 

All honors exceeding, 
What breast but was bolder 

Because he was leading! 

And still in our trouble, 
In peace or in wartime, 

His word shall redouble 
Our strength as aforetime. 

When wrongs cry for righting, 
No odds shall appall us ; 

To clean, honest fighting 
Again he will call us, 

And, cowboys or doughboys, 
We'll follow his drum, boys, 

Who never said "Go, boys !" 
But always said "Come, boys !" 



Isn't that like him? [Applause.] 



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